News, news, and more breaking travel news. There’s been so many big stories in the travel world lately, Gunnar and Kyle blew up the normal show format and spent the episode going beyond the headlines, breaking down everything you need to know. There’s more on new pricing shenanigans from airlines and Uber, the ins and outs of Alaska’s new loyalty program, a big upgrade for Google Flights, and much much more.
News, news, and more breaking travel news. There’s been so many big stories in the travel world lately, Gunnar and Kyle blew up the normal show format and spent the episode going beyond the headlines, breaking down everything you need to know. There’s more on new pricing shenanigans from airlines and Uber, the ins and outs of Alaska’s new loyalty program, a big upgrade for Google Flights, and much much more.
00:00 - A self-indulgent review of Gunnar’s favorite hotel in the world: Under Canvas in Glacier (now bookable with Hyatt points!)
05:13 - PSA: Global entry interviews are easier to find than ever
09:20 - Alaska/Hawaiian’s new award program and why we won’t call it by its name. Plus, the new Alaska/Hawaiian Atmos premium credit card and some new routes to Europe.
17:40 - A leak of what’s coming for the Amex Platinum Card in September
20:50 - Chase-to-Emirates transfers have an expiration date
23:10 - A new worst way to use Delta SkyMiles – insurance!
25:10 - Google Flights adds a basic economy filter and unveils an interesting new AI function
31:20 - The data couldn’t be clearer: Book the earliest flight of the day to avoid delays and cancellations
35:40 - A word from our sponsor (us): Stay up on all the news with our free Daily Beat newsletter
36:30 - One simple choice for your Uber ride will affect your price
39:25 - The Amex Centurion Lounge in Dallas is getting a big expansion
43:00 - Delta and other airlines are overcharging for upgrades
48:00 - The Tulum bubble has burst as airlines keep pulling out
52:10 - A listener wants to branch out from Delta but doesn’t know what card to start with
56:30 - On the spot: The biggest stories from Kyle’s career
Produced by Gunnar Olson & Nick Serati
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo. Welcome to the show. I'm Gunnar Olson here with a man who runs a newsroom like Carmy runs a kitchen in the bear. It's Kyle Potter. Kyle, what's up?
I did not expect the Carmy comp. I like it. I don't know if you're right, but I'll I'll take it. You have a very, very, militant running of our newsroom here that's been very active, over the course of the last few weeks. It is weird that you make us call you chef, though.
We call everybody chef in the office. That's the rule. That's the bare rule. That is. The reason I bring it up is we have so much news to get to in this week's episode.
We just blew up our rundown a few minutes ago, and we're starting from scratch with a bunch of the news that we think you guys need to know. There's so much to get into, so it would be podcasting malpractice to first engage in something this self indulgent. But, Kyle, have you ever been glamping before? I wouldn't call it glamping. I have stayed in a very nice tent, in New Zealand outside of the Milford Sound, but glamping would be a stretch.
I know you're you're an aficionado, not just for glamping as a whole, but in particular for the under canvas brand. Yeah. I I love it. I love glamping. I love under canvas.
Under canvas glacier, we just went, two weeks ago now. And, yeah, Kyle, I tried something called traveling. I'm a host of a travel podcast, so I decided I'd start to travel again. Wow. Yeah.
Yeah. It's fun. Really good. More people should talk about it. More.
We'll see. We went to Under Canvas Glacier, which is just outside of Glacier National Park. We flew to Kalispell and drove up to, Under Canvas there. It is, like, just a really special place and an incredible way to stay near the national parks, these under Canvas brands. And now you can book them, with Hyatt points because they're part of this mister and missus Smith group.
Bookable with Hyatt points, it's a flexible rate. So sometimes you're getting a horrible value for your Hyatt points when you book them. Sometimes you're getting a pretty good value depending on what kind of tent you want. But I I used Hyatt points to book under Canvas Glacier for the first time. It's it has been and always will be my favorite hotel in the world because I do have quite a bit of a bias towards it.
I did get married there. So there's that there's that small detail about your love for it. However, they have never given me a discount on anything. I have paid full ass price every single time I've gone to Under Campus Glacier. So there's no, they haven't bought my favor here in any way.
I just love the place so much, and it's it's just a cool way to use Hyatt points. I I highly recommend you look. If you wanna get one of the tents with bathrooms, they have, like, these very cool, like, pull string showers and running water, hot water, and running toilets and everything. Those are gonna be, like, 38,000 high points a night. So, again, you could do a lot better than, you know, living under a tent for that many high points, but I love them.
You can get the really cheap ones. The really cheap tents are the safari tents for, like, 25,000 points a night. And you have shared bathrooms with those, but it's just such a cool experience to be staying out in the mountains and in the wilderness there under Canvas Glacier. It's a really fun experience. I love it.
So thanks for, letting me indulge myself with a review of my favorite hotel in the world. Well, if if nothing else, you've got me thinking about, under Canvas Moab. One of my favorite trips of all time was almost a decade ago now when my wife and I did the big five parks in Utah, and we stayed at some pretty crappy motels. I'm not I'm not above a crappy cheap motel. I stay in plenty of them.
These were some of the crappiest. And, you know, to do a do over of that trip and retread the ground of, you know, going to places like Zion and Bryce Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands, and Arches and spend some time in Moab at, under Canvas Moab. I that's gonna be on my list. Whether I use Hyatt points or not, I'm not sure. I probably don't even have enough of them to use them, but you've you've certainly turned, I think, everybody in the office on to just how special under canvas is.
Yeah. If you're at all interested in glamping, go check out all their locations. They have one at Acadia in Maine that's right on the ocean too. They have one at Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee that's supposed to be pretty epic. And, if you have kiddos, go to the Mount Rushmore one.
I heard that one is really cool too. So just a a big, big, endorsement of under canvas and what that experience is. That's really cool way to travel and very unique way to use your high points if you have them. Alright. Today on the show, we have, so much news that we're actually ditching the usual format.
There's no hot. There's no cold. There's no extra mile. We're tackling 10 important news stories from the beginning of the travel journey to the end. We're gonna start with good news from Global Entry.
We're gonna talk about some loyalty program changes, why you might be overpaying for your Uber ride to the airport, what overcrowded lounge is getting a face lift, why you maybe shouldn't take an upgrade offer in your airline app to get into first class. And then if we have time, Kyle's gonna share his famous one pan spicy sausage orzo recipe that some are calling irresistible. Strap in y'all. All that and more, welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Alright.
We're back. Like I said, we're not doing the usual format of the show, but we are digging into 10 big stories. And these aren't in order of importance. These are gonna be in order of the travel journey. That's how we've decided to rank these here.
Okay? We we I I will say in advance. We we stretched a little bit to justify the placement of some of these, but we're gonna make it work. Stretching the format today. Alright.
This section, this category, we're calling travel prep. Okay? And Global Entry, Kyle, is one of our favorite travel tools out there. It's from the government's trusted traveler program that created TSA PreCheck. Global Entry gets you TSA PreCheck, but then on the way back from your trip abroad, lets you skip the line for US customs and immigration.
The whole reentry process takes, like, two minutes max, and most of the time, I barely have to break stride when I reenter the country. The last few times through Global Entry, I have literally not stopped walking. It's incredible. Yeah. It it makes you feel, it makes you feel like you've entered a travel experience that is super luxurious when you're on the ground.
Gorgeous, humane. Yeah. Exactly. It's a $120 for a five year membership to Global Entry, but many top tier credit cards will give you a statement credit to cover that cost. Even if you pay out of pocket, I've made it worth it so many times.
I just set up Global Entry for my newborn, and from application to interview, the entire process took five days. We had the global entry card in our mailbox on the seventh day, which is crazy. When I mentioned that offhand to you, you started digging. What'd you find? Well, I found that it is easier than any time, not just in recent memory, but at least within the last five years to get a Global Entry interview appointment at some of the major airports across the country.
Because for as good as Global Entry is, and you're absolutely right about everything you said, it can be a real pain to actually get signed up. First, you have to do the whole kind of background check process and getting conditionally approved while, you know, your young daughter, Emery, made it through in a couple of days. Some people end up waiting not just weeks, but months. And then after that, you need to find an in person interview to actually finalize your enrollment. And that has just really kind of been torture for the last few years, if not a little bit longer, to the point where it's given rise to all of these paid tools where you pay $20, $25, some in some cases, even more.
Some do it for free, but services that will scrape the Internet and alert you when there are appointments available at the airports where you're looking to hopefully get in and and get your interview scheduled. So it's been a hassle for a long time. And, you know, after you mentioned this, I started looking at the, Global Entry interview schedule across the country. And, I mean, the volume of appointments at airports big and small, at airports where we typically never see any availability, period, is there's more appointments out there than any time that I can remember, period. I mean, I can't remember the last time I saw any availability at an airport like San Francisco or Atlanta, and those had widespread appointments available yet this month, next month, through the fall.
I mean, the same thing basically from coast to coast at all of the major, you know, hubs across the country. Yeah. When, when Emery got conditional approval, the I went to look at, you know, when the next time we could possibly get her in for an interview was, and they offered us the same day at 02:00. I think she got approved at 01:00. It was just wide open.
Like, come on in whenever you want. Yeah. And that is I mean, especially at our home home airport of Minneapolis, it is not impossible to find an appointment. But in a lot of cases, you know, in years past, you would be scheduling out three, four months and to have, you know, basically your pick of the litter for that day, that week, later that month. That is unusual.
So I I don't know. It kinda says to me that maybe the appetite for services like Global Entry is following the trend that we've been talking about of just travel demand really starting to slow down and that for much of the last four or five years, there's just been more applications than the federal government could really handle, and and maybe that story has turned. Yeah. Definitely. Alright.
Let's move on to, from kind of the travel prep to this category we're calling earning and redeeming points. What are some big headlines here, Kyle? I mean, the biggest one is is also, you know, probably the newest one, which is that and we've known that this is coming, but now we finally have some specifics about after its acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines. Alaska is unveiling a new award program, and they're also, you know, pulling back the curtain on a first of its kind for Alaska Airlines premium travel card. But I have to start with the name of the new Alaska Airlines loyalty program because I can't decide whether it's terrible or just pretty bad.
What do you think? The name Atmos rewards, Kyle. Honestly, I don't know if I hate it. The problem is, are we going to refer to these points as Atmos or Atmos'? You know, like, because with Avios, we just say Avio.
You know, we're we're looking at 70,000 Avios. Is it gonna be 70,000 Atmos'? Is it gonna be 70,000 Atmos'? Atmos rewards? Atmos points?
We need to consult, like, a physicist to tell us what the plural form of Atmos is, made up word. So maybe we just need, like, a linguist in the studio. I think I'm gonna declare here once and for all. We're just doing it Atmos like we do with Avios. That's the cleanest way.
I think maybe that's what they're getting at here. But Throwing down the gauntlet. The name is way less important than the details here. So one of the cool parts about Atmos or different parts, I guess, is is the members of this program are gonna get to choose how they earn points and status when they fly. So they're gonna be able to choose from distance traveled, price paid, or segments flown, which is really unique.
I've never heard of anything like this, and it'll it's gonna take some digging to figure out which one is actually the best strategy for you. The underpinning of everybody's love for, you know, the RIP pour one out Alaska mileage plan program is that while every other airline in the country and most airlines across the globe have transitioned away from rewarding miles based upon how far you fly and instead just pinning it on how much you're spending on that ticket. Alaska still awards miles based upon distance flown. And so it's honestly shocking that they're not going away from this altogether. I agree.
It is gonna take some work, and maybe it's a little bit of an annoyance to figure out exactly which system you should use, if you should get miles and and status credits based upon distance versus amount spent versus segments flown. But at the same time, just having that flexibility is is really cool, and and Alaska has told us that they are going to allow members to change that on an annual basis. So, you know, if all of a sudden one year, you're out in Seattle and you're flying a lot of nonstop flights, but the following year you end up taking a ton of connections, then maybe it's time to to rethink that. I don't know. I think most people are probably going to be best served by, by taking the the distance traveled, especially for, you know, that crowd out there that's gonna be looking to take, some of those first long haul international flights that Alaska is increasingly adding to its network.
Yeah. Definitely. There this is, obviously, all on the heels of this latest announcement announcement about their kinda global airline effort where, like you mentioned, you were referred to, they're gonna start nonstop service to London Heathrow, and Reykjavik. The Heathrow flight is gonna be on one of its seven eighty seven Dreamliners that they are repainting. The paint job is not huge news to a lot of people, but I think it's, it's really sick.
It's pretty beautiful. I yeah. We got we can nerd out for a second. Yeah. That plane looks amazing.
People don't care what the outside of the plane looks like most likely, but I do, and I think it looks spectacular. So can't wait to see one in person. The Reykjavik flight will be on just a 07:37 max, so that's a short enough flight. It barely even crosses over very much water, which is crazy to think about, so they can fly that on a narrow body there as well. Yeah.
And keep in mind, you know, in addition to London and Reykjavik, they're going to be starting nonstop service to Rome next year. They've already started Tokyo, and they're adding Seoul soon. So they're gonna be adding a lot of international flights in and out of Seattle. I think they've said that they wanna get to a dozen by the end of the decade, and they're well on their way just with these that we know so far. Yeah.
Good for them. And, for all the Delta flyers in Seattle, look for some awesome deals coming your way in the next few years. Oh, it's gonna be a bloodbath in Seattle in the best way possible. Possible. Seattle is a tough airport for especially international flight deals.
You can occasionally get something good over to Asia, Europe less so, but with with Alaska really growing and going head to head with Delta for Seattle domination, which Alaska really does hold that crown on everything except for the internet long haul international stuff. So this is gonna be really fun. I'm jealous of the people out in Seattle. Yeah. How low can it go?
We we are going to find out in the Pacific Northwest soon here. Some other notes about this these loyalty program changes. One of your mileage plan miles or your Hawaiian miles is going to turn into an ATMOS an ATMOS point. One ATMOS. Yeah.
One ATMOS. We gotta get this going, people, for the sake of my writing and podcasting. They are saying the value of your points does not change. Your points do not expire. Whether or not there is, you know, potentially down the line a devaluation coming is probably fodder for another episode, but they are saying the value of your point will not change.
Sure. Yeah. Alright. Let's just let's just say that this is coming on the heels of far too many people out there turning their Amex points into a into Hawaiian miles in order to turn them into Alaska miles, an opportunity that ended in the 2025, a couple of months ago now. And, you know, one of the other big headline items here is that Alaska is introducing a new premium travel credit card with a 100,000 mile sign up bonus after spending, $6,000 in the first three months of card membership.
So there's gonna be a lot of miles out there, and you really just have to think of any mileage program as, you know, responding the same way that money does to inflation. The the more the more miles that are out there, the more likely it is that an airline is eventually going to increase award rates or make negative changes. So there's a lot to love in this whole, you know, batch of announcements that Alaska has made, but there's also definitely some warning signs. Yeah. That credit card is, a marketing team Madlib.
The Atmos rewards summit Visa infinite card. Summit. It it the top, I believe, is what they're going for here. I guess so. Yeah.
So that card will have some interesting features with it, some, you know, extra perks. Alaska Lounge passes, not Alaska Lounge access, which is pretty interesting, that they're kinda doing away with this unlimited access with a premium credit card thing. They're just gonna give you some allotments, which is, you know, fairly new in in the industry. Tell me about this offer for signing up. Yeah.
I mean, like I said, a big piece of the reason why people love Alaska miles is because how much easier they are to earn by flying. The other piece is just that the redemption rates are just so reasonable. They have so many great airline partners, everything from American Airlines and being able to fly that short haul for as low as, like, 5,000, even 4,500 miles each way. You know, global airline partners like Aer Lingus where you can fly to Dublin in a business class seat, not just for 55,000 miles, but 45,000 miles each way. Starlux and Taiwan, and all of this leads to, you know, being able to earn a 100,000 miles is setting a new benchmark for Alaska.
You know, there have been good credit card offers from Alaska's kind of everyday cheaper credit card, but, this one's really good. And, you know, I think maybe most importantly, Alaska is coming in with what is genuinely a premium travel credit card. I think you could make the argument that it's not quite as premium as what some of the other airlines like Delta and United have done. But at the same time, when it comes in at a $395 annual fee, that's really, really reasonable and I think is gonna catch the eye of a lot of loyal Alaska flyers out on the West Coast. Yeah.
Definitely a really good option, and it's gonna be interesting to see this card kinda hit the market and and how many people decide to sign up for it. Alright. Let's move on to a couple of quick hitters here in this, section that we're calling earning and redeeming points. So one of them, back in June, AmEx kinda hastily announced it would update the platinum card and the business platinum card, starting this fall. They offered no details at the time, but some of those were dug up by a Reddit user, one casual browser, who noticed some since deleted terms on Amex's fine hotels and resorts booking page.
It listed an annual $600 hotel credit split into two $300 credits per year, on both of those cards. And most importantly, it noted a beginning date of 09/18/2025. So does that, Kyle, signal an uptick in the hotel credits and a date for the card refresh? What do we think? Yeah.
Absolutely. I think it's both. And, you know, there's good and bad here and also just kind of just a hilarious element to this that, you know, Amex rushed out to say, hey. We're gonna update the platinum card this fall. And they did so basically the exact same day that Chase pulled back the curtain on what it's what it's since done with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, its own premium travel credit card, which among other things included a $500 annual hotel credit split into $250 twice a year chunks.
And Amex is gonna Amex, and they're Amexing at record levels with $600, split into two chunks of 300, one available, you know, January through June, the next July through the end of the year. It it's a positive because currently, the Amex Platinum has a $200 hotel credit available throughout the entire year. So even if you only use one of these each half of the year, you're coming out ahead. Now there's the annual fee topic, which has been rumored at $895 a year. So you're paying for that pretty considerably, But this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I think if if anything, it's kind of a net neutral. It's it's gonna be pretty much business as use as usual for most Amex platinum cardholders. And maybe most importantly, the fact that this change was, at least when it was available online, pegged to 09/18/2025. And that's the second time that we've seen that kind of a date attached to a benefit change on the either the platinum card or the business platinum card, which is also getting, for the first time ever, these hotel credits once this this reported changes is made. That says that this is when this is happening.
So I think we can cross our fingers. We're gonna get a steady drip of more leaks about what's in store. But regardless, I mean, if you have an Amex platinum card, mark your calendars for September 18 and see exactly what's gonna happen. And if you don't and you've been considering it, we just need to reiterate, now is the time. If if you can justify that big annual fee, which is currently at $695 a year, Now is the time to open that card before those changes are made because that allows you to double dip on the benefits that the card has now, the benefits that the card gets come mid September, all while paying a lower annual fee for the first year.
Yeah. That's great advice. Very interested to see what the other changes to this card are going to be because this one is is one that, sits in my drawer. Let's move on to another piece of news here. And Emirates just can't get in the way of good news this week.
So Chase put a notice on its website that it's going to cut Emirates Skyward's miles from the list of Chase transfer partners starting on October 16. This is a really big bummer. Other programs like Citi have dropped their transfer ratios to Emirates, getting rid of the kinda one to one points transfer ratio. Citi making theirs a hilariously confusing five to four transfer ratio. AmEx is going to the same next month too.
So Chase just decided, like I have, that all the math isn't worth it. Yeah. I think so. And you know what? Good for them.
I would at this point, a, I don't wanna do that math of what five to four is because I can't. That is my brain doesn't work that way. But even if it did, Emirates has made so many negative changes to its Skywards rewards program where, you know, even a year ago, you know, being able to book a very reasonable 17,500 mile economy flight from JFK to Milan or from Newark to Athens with very reasonable fees. Now all of a sudden, you're paying 200 plus dollars each way and and almost $500 for a round trip in business class on top of all of the other huge mileage charges and disgusting, like, $900 one way, for a premium cabin ticket from The US to Dubai. Not only do I not wanna do the math on this, and I'm glad I don't have to with Chase, but I will just there's no reason to transfer points to Emirates anymore.
And it just begs the question, what do you do in Emirates? It's it's really strange because I feel like most airlines across the globe are going out of their way to try to appeal to more of The US points market, which is so huge and dwarfs anything else out there in terms of what, you know, citizens of other countries can earn and then redeem their points on. And Emirates has just apparently decided that they don't care anymore. Yeah. And that, you know, tough news for someone who drafted Emirates number five in our airline loyalty program draft way back in episode I don't even remember.
Let's let's do a revote, Yeah. Let's let's not do a revote. You listeners, you all voted and you all named me the winner of that draft. I can't give you the benefit of the doubt for being smart listeners on that one, but I guess you couldn't see the future either. Kyle, let's go to our next story.
What is the new worst way to use Delta SkyMiles? Yeah. Our, our cofounder and coworker, Nick, was just booking something on on delta.com and sent us a screenshot. He's like, have you guys ever seen this before? And because it's Delta, it's awful.
It's truly awful. So when you're redeeming Delta SkyMiles on an award ticket, Delta now gives you the option instead of adding that really crummy, borderline worthless add on insurance policy from Allianz or whoever for $28. They now give you the option to cover that cost using Delta SkyMiles. But, you know, where it would cost $28 for a round trip flight, Delta is charging, like, 32 or 3,200 SkyMiles, which means you're getting less than a penny per mile, which has always been the floor with Delta for as far as people feel like Delta SkyMiles have fallen. Getting at least a cent for each mile you're redeeming is the floor because you can do that with when you use Delta's pay with miles feature, when you redeem SkyMiles for an upgrade, you're typically getting you know, if it's $500, you're using 50,000 SkyMiles or somewhere close to that.
And all of a sudden, you're getting way under a penny per point when you use this option. It's just really bad, and it goes to show you that Delta will do everything it can to get you to cough up its cough up your SkyMiles, and it's up to you to say, no. I'm good, Delta. Yeah. This week, Thrifty Traveler premium members got an alert for 18,000 SkyMiles round trip to Dublin.
Good use of your SkyMiles. Spending 800 to 5,000 SkyMiles on a bottle of champagne in the SkyClub like you do, also good use of your SkyMiles. Buying insurance with your SkyMiles is not smart. Please don't do this. Please don't take Delta up on their offer.
Don't buy insurance anyway. Just book main cabin. Alright, Kyle. Let's move on to the next kind of phase of our news, and this is gonna be kind of the booking section. And this story is a big one.
Google Flights, the best airfare search engine ever invented, your first stop on any travel booking journey, and the most clicks of my browser bookmarks got another big upgrade this week. What is it? You know, I don't remember how long we've been practically begging Google Flights, and we are not alone here for a basic economy filter. And we wrote a story, like, last spring that said, why isn't this happening? Why can't Google do this?
And, you know, we reached out to them and and basically got a no comment. And then this spring, in April, I think, somebody on the team saw, hey. You guys seen this to exclude basic economy from your search results, but it was they were testing it. So I think only, like, less than half of us in the office saw this option. And then for, you know, probably two, three months, it just disappeared, and we didn't see it again.
And then we got word from Google last week that the basic economy filter is coming, and it's here to stay, and it's going to be widely available to all users within the coming weeks if it's not, you know, widely available by the time folks are listening to this. So this is huge. You know, I think for people out there that gladly book basic economy and, you know, will happily save $507,200 dollars, in exchange for not being able to pick a seat or not being able to change or cancel their flights for free. Nothing's changing. You can still make sure that your results on Google Flights still include those basic fares.
But for the folks out there who just avoid basic economy like the plague and who get frustrated using sites like Google to see a price only to click it and see that it's a basic fare, and they want to make sure they get a better main cabin fare that comes with all of those things that used to be included in that ticket cost for free. This is a big, big change that simplifies and makes the booking process a lot easier and more convenient. Yeah. This will be, a limited rollout as far as internationally. It's just gonna start in The US and Canada.
Is that right? That's right. Yeah. So, it'll be kind of for those fares that are a little more predictable for Google to scrape that data and pull them in. So you're not gonna be seeing it on international fares at least to start, but it's really, really awesome.
And, I can't wait to see it kinda rolled out and, get the kinks worked out because I'm sure there'll be a few right away. Oh, yeah. It's not gonna be perfect on day one, but I think bigger picture, longer term, it it presents some pretty interesting opportunities. I mean, I'm really excited at the prospect of being able to do some, you know, big analysis of the differences in price in from basic economy to a standard economy ticket and which airlines are are charging, you know, a higher upgrade charge in order to avoid basic fares and where it's growing the most and, you know, what what's going on over to Europe or to Asia. And without that option within Google Flights, that's just a lot harder to do at scale.
That is the biggest news from Google Flights. It was not the main headline on the press release that they sent out. They are very proud of this other part of the Google Flights news, which is a new AI tool that they purport is going to help you find flight deals through Google Flights. So the way the best way I can explain this is it's taking the functionality of Google Flights Explore, which is already available to you, where you can just plug in your dates and, your home airport, and then you can look at a map to see where the cheapest flights are and what some of your best options are. This is taking that functionality and then kinda just chat GPT ing it, which I'm sure they'll hate to hear because they have their own whatever AI.
But you just you talk to it like you would a person. So you're gonna say, find me a ski weekend in February, you know, looking for a five day trip where I can maybe ski more than one resort, and I wanna fly, you know, in this cabin or whatever. And it'll spit you out some options in kind of a grid, and then you can kinda choose from there. And once you choose from there, it just takes you to Google Flights. So, basically, it's just kinda refining the search so that, you know, it's a little easier to use Google Flights Explorer.
Will you use this? Are you interested in this at all? Well, first of all, in theory, it sounds like I'm gonna have my own robot John Shalbetter, which I'm very on board with that. I think, you know, all things with with AI and how this stuff works is how it actually works in practice and whether you need to double check and spot check and rerun a prompt in order to get the real answer because the the, you know, the technology didn't really understand you or just got the wrong data. I mean, you've you've tried this out already, and I I think you've clearly seen there are going to be some speed bumps as there are with any of this technology that that people are rolling out.
Yeah. It, I asked for pretty much that exact prompt, and it wanted to send me to Connecticut for my ski weekend. So that wasn't gonna work for me. So yeah. So you just reran it and said no Connecticut.
Police, no Connecticut. So, yeah, obviously, it's gonna be you know, there are gonna be some kinks in it, but, it it might, you know, just be a little helpful because Google Flights Explorer does take a bit of practice to really master. It's always been the best tool. So, hopefully, you know, this lowers the barrier to entry a little bit there for that one. I do find it interesting that not four weeks ago in episode 20 when we were talking about AI and how airlines are using AI to set flight prices and what that means, especially if they ultimately end up using personal data.
And you raised the question, will AI help the average traveler fight back? And while I don't know that this is going to be the answer, I think it's encouraging that Google is turning to AI in order to help people find better deals on flights. I still think, especially right now as we're talking, Google Flights Explore, doing that on your own and scanning through the map is going to give you better options than what, you know, this new Google flight deals feature powered by by AI can give you. But at the same time, I mean, if we've learned anything about AI in this technology in the last two, three years, it's that it only gets better and it tends to get better pretty rapidly. So it is encouraging that Google is working on this.
Yeah. Definitely. Okay. We have one more story left in this one. What do we got?
So we we tell everybody all the time. I feel like we've we've said this so many times just in, you know, the 25 podcasts that we've done. Take the first flight of the day because you're gonna get where you need to go on time or your odds are gonna be much better. And then, you know, you set off to actually dig into the data and just see how that important is. And I think we were both pretty shocked at some of the numbers that you came back with.
Yeah. My so just to to break it down, my analysis was for peak summer flights in July when we know that delays are usually the worst. But, you know, the same trends hold throughout the year, albeit less intensely. In in the summer, you know, we delays are worse in the summer because, the storms, the bad weather that hits especially the south and east kinda comes every day and kinda pops up out of nowhere. In the winter, there are obviously lots of delays and cancellations, but you can see winter storms coming sometimes for days.
And so the airlines always get ahead of it. They issue those waivers, and they can cancel or move flights around. So I knew that summer was usually the worst. What we found was that throughout the day, flight delays and cancellations definitely get worse to the tune of 30%. The earliest morning flights operate 30% better than the last flights of the day.
6AM to 11AM are the five best performing hours of the day, and 7PM to midnight are the five worst performing hours of the day. It is as stark as that. The biggest drop off is right between four and 5PM in in the summer months, with American Airlines being the absolute worst of this, because they're exposed, obviously, in Charlotte and Miami and Dallas to kind of the South and East where the weather is the worst. Alaska was the best, no surprise, with a lot of exposure to, you know, the California and Hawaiian airports as well. So just to give you I I broke it down by airport as well.
The five worst were Houston, Charlotte, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Asheville, all 61% or worse on time percentage throughout the summer months. The five best that weren't Hawaii, all the the four major Hawaii airports were one through four, obviously, were Boise, Long Beach, Spokane, San Jose, and Ontario. So that's why you saw Alaska Airlines as the best in that in that study. But go ahead and check out that analysis. There's a lot of really interesting stuff in there, including, like, the time of year.
But just more so than ever, I I always told people book the first flight of the day, and that was more just kind of a based on anecdotes or vibes. But the data is so clear, especially in like, if you're flying right now this week or the next few weeks, if you're worried about getting there, just go rebook for the first flight of the day. Yeah. I was I will tell you, I was really surprised by two things that you found in your study of the data. One, just how stark the drop off is in on time performance throughout the day in the summer versus the winter.
Yes. It's always better no matter the time of year to depart in the morning because that's before airlines problems tend to stack up and delays start to cascade and blah blah blah. We've we've covered that before. But, I mean, it is night and day between summer and winter just how bad things are. And then and then the other part that surprised me was just how clear the dividing line is.
Basically, right around the between the Rockies and the Midwest where I don't I'm not gonna say you don't need to worry about taking that first flight of the day on the West Coast, but, you know, if it's not there, you don't need to worry about it nearly as much because they do not deal with the same kind of weather and, therefore, the operational problems that, that folks in the in the on up and down the East Coast have to deal with on a day to day basis in the summer. Yeah. When we put them on a map, the top 10 and and bottom 10 airports for on time performance, there was zero overlap longitudinally. So the the exact I mean, it's just east and west, and the divide is so stark, and especially in the Southeast where the pop up storms just grind those airports down in the summer months. There were some I mean, there's a lot more data in there airport by airport, but, you know, the Charlotte Airport was in the thirties percent percent wise by the end of the day and peak summer for on time performance.
I mean, that's just abysmal. That's so brutal. If if you have to connect there and they're selling you a thirty five minute connection like they're off to do down there. That's that's really tough. So it was it was fun and interesting to go through that data, so go check that out on the website if you can.
We have five more big stories for you, but first, we're gonna take a quick break. Alright. You're already listening to the podcast, and you might already be a Thrifty Traveler premium subscriber, which means you're already getting ahead in your travels. But staying up on the news, especially in this space, is crucial. And the best place to find the news is from the people who are breaking it.
Kyle, how do you recommend people get news in the travel space? You can go to thriftytraveler.com or you can get that news in your inbox every single weekday with the daily beat newsletter. Just go to thriftytraveler.com/dailybeat, all one word, and we will send you the best, biggest stories of the day every single weekday, Tuesday through Saturday, right to your inbox. Yep. It's just good old fashioned, journalism and travel news that you need without favor or pulling punches.
We cover the airlines, hotels, and everything else in travel that you need to know. Alright. Back to the show. Alright. Welcome back.
Kyle, we are gonna officially change the name of Thrifty Traveler to the pricing shenanigans investigators. Do you like that title? It really rolls off the tongue. Okay. So the next story that we need to dig into is, the latest pricing discrepancy that's affecting the way people get to and get back from the airport.
Tell me about this one. Yeah. Somebody on on Reddit just found this crazy thing that it became clear pretty quickly that this is real. It's not just a one off. It's happening all over the country and in some cases across the globe, which is when you take an Uber to the airport and there are multiple different airlines, at that terminal, exactly which airline you choose to get dropped off at can affect the price of your ride and in some cases, really significantly.
So this Reddit user was looking at, Uber rides to Terminal 4 at in New York City at JFK, and the kind of the flagship airline there is Delta. Terminal 4 is their home. And so they defaulted to selecting Delta as the drop off point and then checked Virgin Atlantic because Virgin Atlantic also operates out of Terminal 4 right next door. I mean, their their check-in desks are right next to each other. And in that case, that ride to Virgin Atlantic in Terminal 4 at JFK instead of Delta in Terminal 4 at JFK was more than $20 cheaper.
This is the ugly side of dynamic pricing. I I don't I don't think that this is is, you know, Uber just gouging Delta customers. I think what it is is Delta is the most popular airline by far at Terminal 4, which means when it's busy and they're getting a ton of rides for people to get dropped off at Delta Airlines at Terminal 4, Uber is charging those riders more than they do even if you're getting dropped off centimeters away. So we checked this out at at JFK and confirmed it's the case. We even checked it out here at our home airport in Minneapolis and found that, yes, if you select American Airlines instead of Delta dropping off at Terminal 1, a Delta hub, you can pay a cheaper Uber bill.
In many cases, we're just talking cents, dollars. But, I mean, especially at major busy airports where the fares can be pretty atrocious, they can be really, really ugly if you pick the wrong airline. Yeah. I did this on Thursday, actually, after our story came out. I I looked, for an Uber to the airport on Thursday night.
I was flying Delta. I checked it and then checked American. It was $1 less. And so I went ahead and just booked it to to the American section of Terminal 1, which, spoiler alert, is exactly the same as the Delta section. It's all in terminal.
So, try this. You know, obviously, take a look around, before you get fleeced on your next Uber ride tour from the airport. It could help you out a great deal. Anything else on this? No.
Let's move on to the airport. Okay. So now we're at the airport, and we're in the lounge. What'd we find this week, Kyle? Well, we found something because you do something more than probably any human being alive, which is look through airport governing board meeting minutes, which is super sexy and exciting.
What did you find this week? Yeah. I was, looking through Dallas's airport board meeting minutes and found that the, Amex Centurion Lounge at DFW, known for being a very overcrowded, very busy lounge, in their portfolio, is getting an upgrade. What I found was that they're going from 12,000 square feet to 18,600 square feet. So what we don't know is what that expense what that expansion will actually entail.
So, obviously, Amex has come out with this new sidecar concept to their lounges where it's a bit of a grab and go. So you're trying to keep butts out of seats in the actual lounge itself and just offering someone, you know, here's a a sandwich or a quick meal and a drink, and then please get out of here, and you can't be there for as long. So that's this is what this could be, and that could help maybe, alleviate some of the the busyness at this Amex Centurion Lounge at DFW. It also just could be a lounge expansion in general. We don't actually know that part.
But what I do know is that the airport board approved this big expansion, and, it's badly needed. Have you ever been in this space? I have, but it's been a long time precisely because of what you touched on, which is that this is, you know, along with Las Vegas, another airport that is seeing this new sidecar concept debut early next year. These are the poster children of overcrowded airport lounges, not just for American Express, but really airport lounges as a whole across the globe. The number of times when I've gone through the Dallas Airport and I've looked at that line, out the elevator doors in order to get in for a lounge that is not worth waiting for at this point, It's it's bad.
This this needs to be done, and I think it it goes to show you that banks, airlines, whoever is operating these lounges, they can do things like change the entry restrictions or start charging more for guests or limit the the annual visits that you get with a credit card. But what they all really need to do every single chance they get the opportunity is to add more square footage because all of these lounges are just too popular. They have made it too easy to get in, using premium travel credit cards that more people have now than ever and will continue getting in record numbers. And so airport lounges as a whole just need to get bigger. Yeah.
Definitely. I'm looking forward to more details coming from Amex on that in the coming months. Do you think that press release is gonna have anything about bespoke design or locally curated artwork? Yeah. I do I do think we'll talk a little bit about local flourishes, and, and, James Beard award winning chefs.
I I have a feeling. This is very inside baseball because we read a lot of press releases from airlines and banks, and every single lounge announcement is exactly the same, folks. Like, please, let's mix it up or do something unique in these spaces. The next time I have to see the word carefully curated in a press release, you'd just it's an automatic delete next time, I think. I don't need I don't need it to be any more bespoke.
I just need two red wines. Okay? Let's let's keep it simple, lounges. Alright. Kyle, the latest in pricing shenanigans as We're going back to it.
Alright. As I'm now calling it. Travelers can be tempted to buy up to first class or to higher cabins through the airlines' apps, with what have become some really good rates. The airlines have done this by design. They've been bragging about how much money they're making on premium seats by lowering the prices and making it available to more travelers.
But those buy up rates you found aren't the way anymore. What'd you discover? Well, it's I'll I'll be honest. It's not so much what we discovered, but what we were tipped off to. So one of our readers and podcast listeners, Anthony, thank thank you, Anthony, for reaching out, just shared a couple of examples of his upcoming flights where, in in his case, Delta was charging egregious upgrade rates, not because they were just so expensive, but because they were so much more expensive than what it would cost to cancel that exact same flight and just rebook in first class instead.
So, you know, one of the the most telling examples, you know, a flight from Boston to Atlanta, they Delta was charging about 48,000 sky miles to upgrade from an economy ticket to first class, but he could cancel and rebook that exact same first class seat for 34,000 sky miles, which combined with the original cost of, like, 13,000 sky miles for that economy seat, choosing that upgrade would have been a 27,000 mile mistake. That's pretty bad. And so, you know, we we looked at that. We looked at more than 20 different examples of our own upcoming flights across the team and found that and not just Delta, though primarily Delta because that's you know, we're here in Minneapolis as other team members are in Delta hubs, So that's where most of our flights are. But in every single instance except for one, the major US airlines, American, Delta, and United, we're charging more to upgrade than to cancel the flight and rebook or just change your flight and rebook into first class.
It's bad. Yeah. It's like it's one of those things that I'm sure a lot of travelers are maybe suspicious of. They're looking at that upgrade price being like, man, is this even better than if I just cancel and rebook? But I think the airlines are making the bet that people are just just lazy enough.
And I'm not calling you lazy because this is exactly me too. Oh, yeah. Are are just lazy enough to not go check what the actual price would be. And especially with a program like SkyMiles, but also with American and United, when you cancel, that redeposit is instant. So there is actually no reason to not do that anymore either.
So just another reason why you need to, take the second take the extra second and go look for yourself. But okay. Why? Why would Delta do this? Why would American and United do this?
Well, I think there's there's a charitable answer, and there's a cynical answer. And surprise which one I'm I believe in. The the charitable answer and I and I'll be honest. I think it's a little bit of both. The nice way of interpreting this is that upgrade inventory is different than the actual ferry inventory.
So those things are set differently. So there always is probably going to be a difference between the upgrade rate versus the cancel and rebook rate. The cynical answer and what I truly believe is exactly what you said, is that airlines know that there is inertia, that once someone is booked, they'd never even think about canceling that flight and rebooking it. Because why on earth would you explore that? And that's the last thing most people wanna do except for sickos like you and I is go back and rebook a flight that we don't have to book.
You just wanna click upgrade, be done with it. But you are paying for that convenience. And I think especially as we've seen over the last, I don't know, five or ten years as these upgrade offers have become so so common as a way to, you know, make sure you get that first class seat or that extra legroom seat at a time when upgrades through status are becoming more scarce. Airlines see this as a way to increase their margins and yet again squeeze a little bit more money out of us. But at a time when more travelers than ever are taking advantage of these upgrade offers, that little bit of difference on each upgrade adds up to a lot at the end of the day.
So it just feels like airlines can't help themselves but find these ways to get more money out of us and make every transaction feel like it's meant to punish us. And you wonder why airlines have a trust problem. Yeah. Seriously. Huge kudos to Anthony for tipping us off to this, and then a huge kudos to you for actually rounding up enough data to prove that this was happening.
But this is another one of those things where, you know, it's it's more pricing shenanigans and it's the more you know, the more you know here. It's it's you're gonna get ahead by just making sure that you're on top of the news, and figuring out what what these airlines are actually doing to, price things the way that they are. So smart travel. Alright. One last story.
It felt like, you know, starting probably around 2022, we were writing about Tulum and its new airport, like, every single week. And within the last, I don't know, couple weeks, maybe couple of months, it feels like that news has turned negative into an undeniable headline that we published this week, which is the Tulum boom is over. So why why are we saying that now? Yeah. Basically, the the airlines are saying it, with their actions.
They've they're cutting these routes that they started it. When when this Tulum boom started, it's the airlines were, you know, falling over themselves to go jump in and establish operations there. It seemed like a no brainer. Right? It's a little closer to Tulum.
Cancun was already super busy. I think people, for good reason, don't love going to that airport. And, you know, this this new, Mayan train was also going to stop right there at the Tulum Airport, which is like, which is pretty exciting and a kind of a good way to get around. I guess it's not as convenient as people thought. But, basically, what has happened was over the weekend, MSP and Detroit were taken off of Delta's route network flying down to Tulum, leaving just Atlanta.
Also in the last few weeks, we've seen AA cut Charlotte, United cut Chicago, Air Canada cut its nonstops from Quebec City and Ottawa, which were probably a little aggressive to begin with. Spirit cut their flying to Tulum before they ever started. They put them on sale and then took them off sale, didn't like what they saw. So, basically, capacity overall by available seat miles is down 27% for this upcoming winter than it was from last winter. And remember, this airport only opened in April 2023.
Oh, no. No. Sorry. December 2023 and two American flights or US flights in, in April 2024. So, I don't know what has gone wrong in Tulum other than maybe it just wasn't as convenient for people who actually wanna get to Tulum as you thought.
Like, I I I'm actually a bit of at a loss here why this didn't work because I was really bullish on this. I thought this is a great option for travelers. Yeah. You know what? I'll I'll just run through my own thought process.
I was very excited that the prospect of of skipping the Cancun Airport the next time I need to get down to that area of Mexico. And the next thing that you do is you look at where that airport is. And when it's, you know, fifty plus minutes away from the main hotel zone in Tulum itself, calling it, the Tulum Airport starts to feel like a little bit of a stretch. So I think there's a piece of it that it's just not as convenient as it perhaps could have or should have been. The train stations at both the Cancun Airport and the Tulum Airport in particular are not super convenient.
They're not as close to the airport as they probably need to be in order to make that also an effective mode of transportation for getting between the two different areas. But, you know, I do think the problem is is bigger. I think it's that, and I might be going out on a limb here that it just opened, like, four years too late, that that they opened this airport as fast as they could, but the the appetite for going to Tulum probably peaked pre pandemic or very early post pandemic. And when you only started to see nonstop flights from The US to Tulum starting in 2024, that was just too late. And that airlines really overextended because they they felt like that demand was still there, but it had really shifted elsewhere.
Yeah. A bit of tough timing too because, all the airlines are pulling back a little on all their capacity, you know, especially short haul. You know, the travel demand just isn't quite there like it was, like you said, a few years ago. So maybe some bad timing. There's still a future for Tulum.
And and as long as the airlines are running these connecting routes still, which they are, they're gonna continue to get data on if people actually wanna go there. And if they do, then maybe some of these nonstops will return. But for now, you're likely to have to take connection to get to that Tulum Airport. All the nannies are going into Cancun. Or yeah.
Or you suck it up and you just keep going to Cancun. Yeah. Exactly. Alright. Those are our 10 news stories of the week, but we need to help a listener as we do every week.
We have a note from Mitra, a new Thrifty Traveler premium member and a podcast listener. Thank you very much for both. They ask, I want to start with a solid points earning foundation first. Here's where I'm at. I'm a SkyMiles member with the standard Delta gold card, and my husband has the Delta Reserve.
He's already racking up plenty of Delta miles for us both, so I'd love to branch out and earn points that open up deals beyond Delta. That said, I don't wanna go wild opening a bunch of new cards. I know there's gonna be a learning curve when it comes to transferring points for travel, and the options are overwhelming. So where should I start? Is there a one card you'd recommend as a first step outside Delta that could work for both hotels and flights?
That's the first part of the question. The second part is, and just for fun, if you're planning a birthday celebration with points in February, where would you go? Alright. Do the do part one first. Well, alright.
When I hear someone say that when it comes to transferring points for travel, the options are overwhelming. My mind immediately goes to the Capital One venture card because that gives you the bat best of both worlds. If you do want to start to dip your toe into this world of transferring points and finding award availability, whether you get help from us or another service where you do it on your own, being able to transfer those points to British Airways or Qantas or Cathay Pacific or Air Canada Aeroplan or Air France KLM, that's great. That gives you that option. But if that ends up being too much, you still have the ability to make any travel purchase on your Capital One card and then go back and erase that travel purchase from your statement for a cent per point.
So if it's a $500 flight, you book it, whether it's on delta.com or Air Canada or American or wherever. You book it on your Capital One card. You wait a couple of days, and then you log in, and you erase that statement altogether from your credit card bill with 50,000, the Capital One miles. Having both of those options is just maybe the most important starting point as you branch out from, you know, your airline of choice and start dipping into these transferable points programs. That's that level of flexibility is just not something that you're gonna get from another bank.
So that makes Capital One the easy easy answer here. I would totally agree, and seconded because Capital One's tech is really good and really easy to use as well. Their app's nice. Their website works nicely. It's it's, it feels very twenty first century.
It's a and cannot say that for every bank. Okay. Second part of the question. If you're planning a birthday celebration with points in February, where would you go? I have a recommendation.
We sent a Thrifty Traveler premium alert, which, Mitra, I'm sure you already got. Nationwide business class deal to London from 45,000 miles each way. A little more if you're going from the West Coast, but lots of February availability on this. As we recommended in a previous episode, return from Dublin to avoid the high taxes and fees when flying out of London on the way back. But that also gets you two cities in the low season without crowds, pack a jacket, and celebrate your birthday properly with some off season pricing.
What do you recommend? I I also like the off season pricing angle. I also increasingly like the off season travel demand angle when, you know, you're somewhere where it's not at its busiest and just just feel like you have a lot more space to yourself. And so, you know, the first one that comes to mind for me is Japan. I think February and early March is just a really underrated time to be in Japan, whether you wanna go all the way up north into Hokkaido and either do some skiing or some snow festivals or just spend time in Tokyo and go down to Kyoto with a fraction of the people there.
I think it's a really, really great time to be in Japan. So if that's on your list, February sounds pretty darn good to me. Yep. I was in Japan, and two February's ago, I went up for the Sapporo Snow Festival, which is such a cool time. And then, obviously, the skiing in Hokkaido is insane if you love skiing like I do.
If you want us to answer your question, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, and your question might end up on next week's show. We're actually collecting a few more questions. So if you have one, big or small, no dumb questions here, send it to us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We're putting together a mailbag episode, and we'd love to hear from you. Again, no bad questions.
Whatever you got, I'm sure someone out there has the exact same question. Hyper personal about Gunnar and his travel habits also. We accept those. Exactly. Alright.
Our last segment, as always, is on the spot, and it's my turn to put Kyle on the spot. Are you ready? Blew up the rest of the show. Why don't we just pull up this one? Nope.
Nope. We're sticking with this one. Okay. Kyle, you've broken a lot of news in the travel world over the last few weeks, like, a crazy amount of news more than anyone else out there. Not to toot your own horn, but toot toot.
What's the best news you ever broke? I want one non TT in your history as a journalist and one TT story, one Thrifty Traveler story. In your journalism career, what are some of the favorite stories you ever broke or wrote? It doesn't have to be a breaking news story. It could be, like, a feature you wrote or something.
But what are the best stories? You know, the the non TT, non travel story when I worked for the Associated Press here in Minnesota. I wrote a story that in the first year of alcohol sales at, the stadium formerly known as TCF Bank Stadium, the, Golden Gophers Football Stadium, they lost money selling alcohol. And that that news I mean, this was more than a decade ago now, but that news went viral because it's like, how do you lose money selling beer to football fans? What did we do here, people?
So that one is is and always has been really memorable. You know, I I it's impossible for for me to think about a travel story that matters and not think about our reporting earlier this year on the solar solo passenger penalties when we confirmed that all three major US airlines were charging solo passengers significantly higher fares than groups of two or more. And then not, twenty four full hours later, Delta and then United both cut those fares out of their their system. That was, that was a and I think that was a big day for us, and I think a really big wake up call to people out there about just what lengths airlines will go to in order to charge passengers more money. Yeah.
Pretty insane ones. Alright. That was a good one. That was good good answers for on the spot. You ready to wrap this up?
Let's do it. Okay. Thank you all so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Please rate us five stars in your podcast platform of choice, and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube where you can watch us. Send this episode along to someone you know who needs a vacation and need to catch up on the news this week.
If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. I'd love to hear from you there. We read every single one of those emails. Please keep them coming. Kyle, tell us about the Thrifty Traveler podcast team.
This episode was produced by our cofounder, Nick Serati, and your favorite host who is trying to convince his wife to let him sent set up a tent in their backyard because it's, quote, glamping all year long, Gunnar Olson. Is edited by David Strutt, and our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See you.